An Australian boy's fight against Neuroblastoma, a lethal childhood cancer

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Rough days

Dylan is well but had a rough day on Tuesday and yesterday. He vomited after he had the stem cells and felt sick most of the day and of course smelt like rotten sushi. He has not eaten much at all this week and is starting to loose weight. The diarrhea has started as a side effect of the Irinotecan chemotherpy he had last week, so his potassium levels are also low and needing to be supplimented. Yesterday they started a morphine push pain reliever, that Dylan can push himself when he feels the need. He has ulcerations down his throat from the chemo and that is making it very hard to swallow, even his own saliva. Today they will start TPN (IV feeding) to prevent further weight loss. All of these side effects should be gone when his counts start to rise, hopefully within the next 7-10 days. This is the hard part now for Dylan, as he feels the physical effects from the therapy but he will get better each day. I spoke with Dylan yesterday about Daddy and Cain leaving next week and he is much more comfortable with it now. He smiled at me and said "we will be alright mum". He then persuaded me to give him a long foot massage, just to make him feel even "more better" LOL. Dr Modak is meeting with Tim and I tomorrow afternoon to discuss the treatment plan for Dylan that the team has discussed this week. I briefly spoke with Dr Kushner the other day about harvesting more stem cells and he said that this will not be possible for quite some time after the intense treatment Dylan has had in the recent months, but they too would like more stem cells and hopefully in the future this will be a possibility. So for now, we wait for Dylan's counts to rise and keep him as comfortable and as happy as possible. He spends his days watching dvd's, playing ninetendo and tinkering on the computer. His teacher comes in 3 days a week for schooling and he also continues occupational therapy with his nurse who gets him out of bed and into the playroom. His art teacher has also promised a visit next week to set an art project for him to do. Dylan's favorite time though, is spent with Cain, playing board games and computer games together.